
Class "?^3^ 5. 

Book T^^T] 



GopightN?. 



9 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



TRANSCRIPTIONS 



FROM 



ART AND NATURE 



BY 



WILLIAM STRUTHERS 




DREXEL BIDDLE, PUBLISHER 

LONDON PHILADELPHIA SAN FRANCISCO 

228 South Fourth St. 

1902 



THE L'BWAf^Y df 
Two 0»\u REOcivee 

APR. 28 ^902 

00f^HI«HT BXTRY 

CLASS (X XKi. M<». 

3 1 ^ ^ 






Copyright, 1902 
BY ANTHONY J. DREXEI. BIDDI.E 



Printed by 
DREXBI/ BIDDI.E 

PHILADELPHIA LONDON 



TO THE 
MEMORY OF MY MOTHER 
AND TO THE DEAR FRIENDS WHOSE FAITHFUL 
AND UNSELFISH AID WOULD HAVE BEEN 
NOT LESS CORDIALLY ACKNOWL- 
EDGED BY HER THAN 
BY MYSELF 
IS THIS BOOK 
GRATEFULLY AND AFFECTIONATELY 
INSCRIBED 



For permission to use various poems pre- 
viously printed in publications under their con- 
trol, sincere thanks are tendered the editors of 
The Centwj Magazine^ The Smart Set, Town 
and Country, The Conservator, Boston Even- 
ing Transcript, and other periodicals and jour- 
nals. 



FOREWORD 

From afar in the misty past I have cherished 
the wish to have my verses collected, and to 
see associated with them those two monosyl- 
lables to the embryo author of so momentous 
import — book-form. 

Sometimes, furtively, hither and thither 
flickering like a will-o'-the-wisp across a fen, 
hope has come and gone ; sometimes it has 
loomed before me, clear and lucent in glowing 
expansion — a veritable Fata Morgana ; then, 
again, it has faded and vanished into such 
nothingness that, in pitying contempt of my 
past credulity, a scornful smile has curled my 

lip. 

But now that, thanks to unexpected friendly 
aid, the desire has at last materialized, in trepi- 
dation I ask myself how will so long-wished-for 
an embodiment be regarded by those for whose 
patronage it purposes to sue? My case is 
much like that of a timid lad, who, never- 
3 



theless, for the sake of sport or good cheer, 
ventures alone, in the dark, through a wood. 
Every step in advance has its accompanying 
spectral tread ; every tree -trunk its grinning, 
ambushed monster, until the poor boy emerges 
from the shadow, limp, chattering, and unable 
to enjoy that which has spurred him to submit 
to such an ordeal. 

Therefore, knowing how decisively modern 
opinion judges poetry a parasitic product, and 
likewise knowing in what questionable esteem, 
barring orchids, all parasites are held, I come, 
with mingled eagerness and apprehension, to 
beg for a moment the indulgent reader's notice. 

The Author. 



CONTENTS 



MUSIC TRANSCRIPTS 

PAGE 

Chopin's Funeral March . . . .11 

On Chopin's Etude in C Sharp Minor . . 12 

Chopin's Polonaise in A Flat Major . . 13 
Berceuse . . . . . ... 15 

Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata . . • i? 

The Prairies of the East . . . • 17 

On Tschaikowsky's Serenade Melancolique . 19 

Les Preludes of Franz Liszt . . . .20 

Reverie on Chopin's '' Berceuse " . . 22 

An October Symphony . . . .23 

A Celestial Prelude . . . . -23 

Notturno ....... 24 

A Sonata in Azure . . . . -25 

SONNETS 

Walt Whitman . . . . . -29 

Walt Whitman : 1901 . . . . . 29 

In Memoriam. John McCullough . . 30 

Oliver Wendell Holmes : 1 809-1 894 . . 31 
5 



Bismarck ...... 

Daughter of Poland and of That Old Race 

Bismarck and the Kaiser 

George W. Childs : 1829-1894 

''Dear One, Beyond the Touch of Time 

Chance" . 
Consolation 
An Epitaph 
An Eastertide 
To the Eye of Love 
Union 

The Trust of Love 
A Sonnet . 
Sotto Mare . 
Sonnet 

The Rejected Japanese Lover 
Two Color Sonnets 
Two Sonnets in Mezzotint 
An Alpine Lake . 
An Upland Brooklet . 
With Nature 
The Matin Bell . 
The City and the River 
Orion and the City 
In Primal Days . 
To '*A Red, Red Rose" 
The Forsaken Homestead 
Moonlight in the Small Hours 
Before the Dawn . 

6 











PAGE 


The Taj Mahal 51 


Discontent -52 


Compensation 53 


LYRICS 


Monitions 57 


The Infinite Sympathy 


. 






58 


In Early Winter . 


. 






59 


'Mid Summer Noontide 


Dreams 






59 


February 


. 






60 


Confession . 


. 






61 


Jayme 








62 


In the West 


. 






62 


True Grief . 


. 






63 


Pain and Death . 


. 






63 


Youth and I 


. 






64 


The Secret . 








65 


Love and Ambition 


. 






66 


It is Not True 


. 






67 


Then and Now . 


. 






68 


The Meadow Lark 








. 69 


At Sunset . 








. 69 


November Winds 








70 


Wind Voices in March 


. 






71 


A March Fantasy 








. 73 


Mysticism . 


. 






■ 73 


The Silent Land . 


. 






74 


The Gem Without a Setting . 






. 76 


**Like Cressets in the 1 


[ce-King's ] 

7 


Halls 




. 77 



The Little Visitor from the Moon . 


. 78 


The Cedar Tree in Winter . 


80 


The Esthonian Mother and the Wolves . 


80 


In the Rain ..... 


83 


Ferns on the Heights .... 


83 


^'Leeway" (or Drifting Apart) . 


85 


" Alas, the Chill, Wild Night !" . 


86 


A Wayside Waif 


87 


Variations 


87 


The Passing Butterfly .... 


88 


The June Robin ..... 


89 


The Frost-Witch 


90 


A Winter Night Storm . . . . 


91 


The Knights of the Yellow Shield 


92 


A Thanksgiving Picture . . . . 


93 


The Bird Wings 


94 


A June Dream ...... 


95 



MUSIC TRANSCRIPTS 



CHOPIN'S FUNERAL MARCH 

Inscribed to Walter Damrosch 

THE measured tread of feet : 
The drums' grim, muffled beat. 
Ended the strife, the grief, what we call life. 
Alas, that grief must be, and bitter strife ! 
Now cometh heavy stillness, shadowy peace ; 
The wondrous and unutterable release. 
'Neath cypress boughs we bear the hero's bier, 
Whilst lower the skies above us, gray and 

drear . 
Down, down, far down to yon tenebrious vault 
The grandest form that pride did e'er exalt ! 

Yet tenderly the heart remembers him, 
And loving eyes grow ever moist and dim ; 
For very loath is Love to say farewell 
When for the loved one tolls the passing bell ; 
And strong is Love, and battles strenuously 
To guard his own from Death's chill mastery. 

The measured tread of feet : 

The drums' grim, muffled beat. 

Ended the strife, the grief, what we call life. 

Alas, that grief must be, and bitter strife ! 

Now cometh heavy stillness, shadowy peace ; 

The wondrous and unutterable release. 

'Neath cypress boughs we bear the hero's bier. 

Whilst lower the skies above us, gray and 
drear . 

Down, down, deep down to yon most dark- 
some tomb 

Amidst the silence of eternal gloom. 



ON CHOPIN'S ETUDE IN C SHARP 
MINOR 

FLICKERING leaves athwart the moon's 
wan light : 
A hush steals o'er my heart and o'er the night. 
Gliding like phantoms through my revery, 
Pass dreams of love in star-eyed fantasy. 
Then with the magic known but to that bird, 
A nightingale its jugjug maketh heard, 
So ear-elusive that my pleasure fades 
In listening, as it dies 'mongst dim glades. 

Yet what strange flood of feeling fills my breast 
With this keen ecstasy of Love's unrest? 
As though they knew the peril lurking nigh, 
The leaves toss madly ' neath a darkened sky ; 
Whilst like a blast from the sirocco's mouth, 
A wild wind rushes from the unknown south. 

But quickly doth it pass, and all the earth 

Is calm once more ; and in my soul hath birth 

Again the vision of the nightingale. 

The spectral love-plaint 'midst the leaf -dimmed 

veil 
Of pallid moonlight ; and a fairy stream 
Seems plashing from a fount, with silver gleam 
And glint of phantom ripples, on the marge 
Of woodlands dusk and limitlessly large. 



12 



CHOPIN'S POLONAISE IN A FLAT 
MAJOR 



B 



LOW the bugle, forward spur ! 
Let fierce strains your pulses stir ! 



Rouse ye, rouse ye, Vistula men ! 

Raise high, raise high your good sword arm ! 
With banners floating bright and wide, 
And temples flushed with patriot pride, 
March, march o'er steppe and stagnant fen, 
Gayly saluting War's alarm ! 

Of vintages 'tis sure the best. 

Wine sparkling through all our veins, 
And rapid as the Niemen's flood. 
This fiery, tingling Polish blood. 
Forever had wine fairer test 

Than to keep pure where slavery reigns ? 

Sons of Warsaw ! as ye would chase 
Volhynian wolves 'mid frozen space. 
So haste to smite from off his throne 
The Tzar Wolf, grinning when ye groan ! 
Why should not his own Neva's waves 
Engulf the beast that blood so craves ? 

Blunt, rusty sword, flash clean and keen ! 
Your blade must many a red field glean. 
And greet, on Moscow's grassy plain. 
Pity with pitiless disdain ! 
Behold our country harks our vow 
To blot the stigma from her brow ! 

13 



^* Tramp, tramp, tramp! Tramp, tramp, 

tramp ! " A sound 
Of hoofs, that paw, with muffled bound, 
The darkness. Rides a cavalcade 
Now athwart Grodno's forest shade? 
Yet what equestrians are these 
Who, passing, thrill the midnight breeze ? 
Knights in armor, and dames whose grace 
Is clad in filmy clouds of lace. 
And silk and satin gowns, that trail 
Spectrally down the beechwood vale ; 
Whilst such a glamour round is shed 
As shrouds the disembodied dead ! 
Yea, Poland's noble slain have heard, 
Grave deep, the oath our lips hath stirred ; 
They come to strengthen feeble feet. 
To curse the voice that cries " Retreat !" 
Only an instant do they pause. 
These haughty scorners of Fate's laws ! 
Then in wavering, plumed mass, 
Onward the phantom troop doth pass, 
Till like the melting of the mist 
From Pripet's marshland moonbeam kissed. 
It fades afar, upon the lea. 
To sounds of faint, weird minstrelsy. 

Blow the bugle, forward spur ! 
Let fierce strains your pulses stir ! 



Ill 

Treasure the vision in your souls. 
Too humble sons of haughty Poles ! 

14 



Let it fire you to break your gyves, 
To consecrate your aimless lives 
Unto the land that gave you birth, 
The saddest land on all God's earth ! 

Beat, beat, oh, drums ! and like the flow 
Of tidal waves, ye trumpets, blow ! 
Swear, Poles, by Kasimir's dear name, 
Unto Russia — war, death, and flame ! 
But, by yon stars that o'er us blink, 
To Poland — peace, life, joy, drink, drink ! 

BERCEUSE 

THE darkness hushes the twilight breeze. 
Listen, sweet one, my babe so dear ! 
Whilst night and silence hover near, 
A moonbeam kisses the white birch trees. 

Soon in the slumberland thou wilt be, 
A land of magic mystery ; 
A land where all things grow so strange. 
Where, like the dawn clouds, they swiftly 
change. 

These meadows broad seem as those where 

roam 
The flocks that feed our Polish home ; 
Yet there, from no rock-buttressed hill, 
Does the reed-fringed stream its ripples spill. 

The eve star silvers the vast, dim plain ; 
A stripling shepherd pipes his strain ; 
But wherefore growls the shepherd's dog? 
Are wolves' eyes glittering 'thwart the fog? 

15 



Yet cheer up, darling ! We'll hie away. 
Oh, see the sunlight dance and play 
On gilded domes and snowy walls, 
And on green and scarlet Kremlin halls ! 

Or once more we'll speed to pasture lands, 
Where herdsmen guard their bovine bands. 
Whilst o'er the steppe winds wander, sweet 
With the scent of wild flowers' soundless feet. 

Or gayer scenes than aught seen before 
Shall greet us on a balmy shore — 
Caiques that skim waves blue and cool ; 
Minarets and mosques of Istamboul. 

Or in far-off, unknown Araby, 

Beside the pearl-embedded sea. 

We'll listen to the camel bells 

Tinkling down shadowy date-palm ''tells." 

Or in groves of lissom tamarisk 

We'll watch the nimble monkeys frisk. 

And see the huge gray elephants 

Plod where sunshine, banyan -darkened, slants. 

Then in some spicy atoll, where sigh 
The cocoanut trees, and gulls oft fly 
Over the foam-flecked coral ring, 
We'll hark to the Southern Ocean sing. 

The great Dark hushes the twilight breeze. 
Yet, sweet my child ! have thou no fear 
Of Night and Silence : Listen, dear ! 

A moonbeam kisses the white birch trees. 

i6 



BEETHOVEN'S MOONLIGHT SONATA 
Inscribed to E. P. Watson 

AS Milton sings, young bards by haunted 
streams 
Are charmed with magic scenes in sunset 

skies, 
So wooes the low Andante ears and eyes, 
Gliding from Day to greet the Moon's first 

beams. 
Whereat the smiling Allegretto seems 
To scintillate ; like as a star might rise. 
Presto ! to vanish in subdued surprise 
At sight of the weird shadow dance of Dreams. 

But hark ! What horns of some fantastic chase 
Wind ' thwart the forest, silvery, afar ? 

Swift-footed Echoes every note retrace ; 
And lo ! again Terpsichore doth star 

With twinkling measures all the sylvan space, 
Till dawn makes heard the wheels of her 
bright car ! 

THE PRAIRIES OF THE EAST 

Suggested by Borodin's " On the Steppes," and grate- 
fully inscribed to Mr. Elliott Schenck, assistant conductor 
of the Damrosch orchestra. 

BOUNDLESS as ocean billows, sweeps the 
grass 
Northward to tundras of unending cold ; 
Southward to where the sad-eyed exiles pass 
With thirsty lips across the Kirghiz wold. 

Dost hark the drowsy bleating of the flocks. 
Which mingles with the herdsman's tuneless 
song? 

17 



The neigh of steeds that wait, with tethered 
hocks 
The Persian raid for which their masters 
long? 

There comes a tinkling, as of camel bells, 
Where plods Kiakhta' s tea-fraught caravan ; 

And sweet the plain, all blossom-spangled, 
smells 
Where once Mongolian gore in torrents ran. 

In the tall reeds a cradle-croon awakes 
For yonder Tartar babe a waterfowl ; 

While here the mother foaming kumiss makes 
Beneath the black felt tent's storm-beaten 
cowl. 

Beyond the Volga's forest-bordered flood. 
From far away upsteals a droning sound. 

It stirs the Turcoman's barbaric blood ; 

It makes the half-wild Cossack chieftain 
bound. 

It wanders from the prairies of the East, 
The steppes that greet the rosy eastern sky, 

Where Freedom on her own great thoughts 
doth feast 
And, in the spirit, every chain defy. 

'Tis the enchantment named the desert breeze, 
Which wooes the world-worn like a lover's 
voice ; — 
Which thrills the heart that aught else may 
not please, 
And bids it still on nature's breast rejoice ! 



ON TSCHAIKOW SKY'S SERENADE 
MELANCOLIQUE 

Note. — In grateful remembrance of David Mannes* 
sympathetic violin solo playing of the composition, at Wil- 
low Grove Park, Philadelphia, summer of 1901. 

The writer imagines the Serenade MeLmcolique to be 
sung over the grave of a bride by the disconsolate bride- 
groom. 

PENSIVE my gaze, and sorrowful the eve ; 
Low uttered murmurs o'er the moorland 

grieve. 
Lonely my heart is, as yon starless lake. 
Where, light-denuded, heavy ripples break. 
I will steal forth to seek the moundless tomb, 
To chant a night dirge 'midst the chill, dumb 

gloom — 
A serenade ironic 'neath black skies, 
Love's hopeless requiem where my lost life lies. 

But why wail, heart? 'Tis, sure, the way of 

fate: 
Such comes to all of us betimes or late. 
Then up, and laugh — I tell you, up and laugh ! 
And from the clouded glass the fell drink quaff ! 
What need of tears 
More than of fears ? 
All is made one through lapse of years. 
So up, and on ! a mocking song. 
And let the world swing right or wrong ! 
Ha, ha ! ha, ha ! I do not care. 
I but the common lot must share. 
Then up, and laugh — I tell you, up and laugh ! 
And from the clouded glass the fell drink quaff ! 

Yet woe is me ! I cannot dance nor sing. 
The thoughts of old, like chains, about me cling, 

19 



My heart is breaking, though I do not weep ; 
And, worse than death, despair doth o'er me 

creep. 
In vain I stand beside the moimdless grave ; 
I cannot chant ; I only moan and rave : 
The eyes are sightless that could make life dear. 
The fondly-eager ears can no more hear, 
The lips are mute that made toil light and 

sweet — 
Yea, all is stifled ' neath a winding sheet ! 

Hopeless I wait amidst the moonless night, 
Hearing the low-voiced wind take trackless 

flight. 
Poison lurks in my panting, fevered breath : 
My soul is bitter as the Sea of Death ! 
I've stolen forth to seek the moundless tomb. 
To chant a serenata 'midst the gloom — 
A song of frenzy and of endless pain ; 
But none shall listen : all is void and vain. 



LES PRELUDES OF FRANZ LISZT 

Inscribed to Jan Koert 

THE morning breeze salutes mine eager 
brow ; 
I see the sunbeams, strangely prescient, 
Begild yon bulwark of far soaring hills. 
And flush with dawn fire myriad night-chilled 
rills. 
On all I gaze in gladness reverent. 
So purposeful my spirit greets the Now. 

And as I journey on, my joy grows large. 
Encompassing the girth of every sense, 



And cloudless, save that on my sky's far marge 

There looms a cincture sinister, and tense 
With latent wrath ; yet know I naught of fear, 
Since storm and darkness to my soul are dear. 

Yet beauty wooes me ever forcefully 
In sky, in wood, in river and in wave ; 

And, mingling his grand flame with nature's 
light. 

To chant a psean o'er the conquered night, 
Love bids me shun the perils I would brave 

With all his splendor of impassioned harmony. 

With Love I wander through the happy meads 
Where piping shepherds gather on the grass ; 

With Love I turn from comment of great deeds, 
Willing to let the languid daylight pass 

Into the gloaming, nervelessly content 

Because of Love's exceeding blandishment. 

Yet stay ! a shout, a bugle call ; the sky 
Is filled with lightnings ; thunders roll and 
crash ! 
Away, O Love ! begone, ye pastoral sounds ! 
Life pulses through me, thrills, and forward 
bounds. 
Ah, Fate ! I hail thee, yield to thy stern lash, 
Whilst every fond appeal I do deny. 

The battle thickens round me. How the steel 
Of grief and anguish does my bosom pierce ! 

Yet, more and more returning, lo, I feel 

Love and calm echoes, 'midst the tumult fierce. 

Striving with hatred, giving balm to woe, 

And strewing blossoms o'er the path I go. 



The martial clangor, like a stormed-tossed sea, 
Beats in mine ears, that now do hark a strain 

Superbly grand, as if from some fair clime 

More than the highest heights of earth sublime ; 
And, 'midst the bloody sweat and bitter pain, 

God's paradisial portals ope for me ! 

REVERIE ON CHOPIN'S ''BERCEUSE" 

IN the dim, voiceless twilight time 
My hands with yearning seek the keys, 
Beneath which, like a fairy chime 

Or wafture of elysian breeze. 
Awakes the wondrous lullaby 

Of Poland's gentlest genius-child : 
To other days my thoughts then fly, 
By that dream-melody beguiled. 

And Memory comes whispering 

Her secrets to my wistful heart. 
Till, touched by Sorrow's dusky wing, 

I feel the silent tears upstart, 
And then give sudden place to calm 

That fills with nameless peace my breast : 
As if my mother's cool, white palm 

Was on my burning forehead pressed. 

And when the perfect last chords sigh 

Their exquisite, divine refrain 
And in the gathering darkness die, 

The silent tears come back again : 
As if, for that brief, precious space, 

My mother had Death's fiat mocked, 
And, like a babe, in her embrace, 

My soul to sweetest slumber rocked. 

22 



AN OCTOBER SYMPHONY 

'* A LLEGRO !" Mark the sparkle on 
/^ yon leaves 

That, clad in scarlet splendor, feel no fear. 
Darting long flames across the gloomy mere 

Where yellow reeds uplift their barren sheaves. 

Yet where, 'midst tangled vines, the water 
grieves. 
Repeating its Andante, low and clear. 
From dawn till silver autumn stars appear. 

Then on till purple night its course achieves. 

And oft a wind, blithe as a breeze in spring. 
Wafts over meadow, hedge, and tawny hill 

A Scherzo, whose quick notes jocosely fling 
Defiance to each threat of storm and chill, 

Then skyward rise, and in the vast blue sing 
A grand Finale that all space doth fill ! 



A CELESTIAL PRELUDE 

QUIETUDES of darkest, infinite blue, 
A thousand chastened love-fires blend 
in you. 
Ye have, by purity of tint, expressed 
The apotheosis of love's unrest. 

Silvery sweeps of brightness glorified, 
Shimmering, flashing 'midst the day's white 

tide, 
Through you a million expiations seek 
Their triumph unto world-worn souls to speak. 



23 



NOTTURNO 

EL mondo dovecchessia, 
Tra la polverosa via, 
Come cosa sacra e pia, 
lo t'aspettero. 



N 



Dove stende il deserto, 
Silenzioso ed erto, 
Coir occhio ben' esperto, 
lo t'aspettero. 

Come augello intra muri 
Di boschi folti e oscuri, 
Finche la notte duri, 
lo t'aspettero. 

E dalle sue latebre 
Mio cor, fra le tenebre, 
Dara un canto funebre : 
" lo t'aspettero !" 

Where tread the crowd's quick feet 
Along the dusty street, 
As in a calm retreat, 
I wait, I wait for thee. 

Where spreads the desert's waste, 
By silence all embraced, 
With cheerful heart and chaste, 
I wait, I wait for thee. 

Or like a bird at dark, 
' Mid some lone, shadowy park. 
Till gleams dawn's rosy spark, 
I wait, I wait for thee. 

24 



And with my last, faint breath, 
Deep in the depths of death. 
Listen what my soul saith : 
" O love, I wait for thee !" 



A SONATA IN AZURE 

A BLUE-CAPPED flood of blossoms, toss- 
ing wide. 
Greets the clear waters of a lake that slips 
Toward forelands where the violet mists 
eclipse 
The flash and flicker of the azure tide. 
And from one's view yon mountains partly hide, 
Which loom up with the majesty of ships 
Whose flag to foeman, small or great, ne'er 
dips. 
Whose masts and shrouds proclaim a well-earned 
pride. 

Yet in that land, the Chinese sea beyond. 

Dwell folk, like their blue lake, of soul serene, 
Though gay as vintages of La Gironde 

When purple grapes on sunny slopes they 
glean — 
People who unto Hope's kind touch respond, 
Nor weary grow of Thrift's dull-paced rou- 
tine. 



25 



SONNETS 



WALT WHITMAN 

JUST as this world rewoke, refreshed, from 
sleep 
To hark the laughter of the Infinite, 
That never craveth sleep, One took his flight 
From earth to lands beyond the sombre Deep ; 
One, over whom no darkness could make creep 
Fear's chill, nor Doubt bring dimness of the 

sight ; 
But whose old age clasped Death with youth's 
warm might. 
With eyes wherein Love's deathless fire did 
leap. 

Not less he cherished Art, but Nature more — 
Nature, who filled him with fierce ecstasies. 
Till seemed Song's ancient realm too strait a 
shore. 
And he sailed forth to chant 'midst wider 
leas: 
He showed, unwrought, the Future's golden ore. 
And touched stray chords of inchoate har- 
monies. 



WALT WHITMAN: 1901. 

Note. — Read by Henriette Hovey, at the dinner of the 
Walt Whitman Fellowship : International, New York, May 
31. The author was not present. 

HE fell asleep when in the century's skies 
The paling stars proclaimed another 
day — 
He, genial still, amidst the chill and gray, 
With smiling lips and trustful, dauntless eyes ; 
29 



He, the Columbus of a vast emprise, 
Whose realization in the future lay ; 
He, who stepped from the well-worn, narrow 
way 
To walk with Poetry in larger guise. 

And fortunate, despite of transient griefs. 
The years announce him in a new-born age ; 

The ship of his fair fame, past crags and reefs. 
Sails bravely on, and less and less the rage 
Of gainsaying winds becomes; while to his 

phrase 
The world each day gives ample heed and 
praise ! 

IN MEMORIAM. JOHN McCULLOUGH 

REST after strife is his. Words passing 
sweet ! 
The meaningless, mad tempest surely past ; 
From nameless, dazing tortures free at last ; 
With hands crossed where the heart has ceased 

to beat ! 
Yet sad to know that ne'er again his feet 
Shall tread the stage whereon he woke such 

blast 
Of passion, that men thrilled, or bowed, aghast, 
At what his art of feeling could entreat ! 
He sleeps of pain triumphant, 'mid the flowers 
That friends have gathered in these new, strange 
hours — 
In this vague dawn of Life that is to be 
This, as ' twere, sighting of the unknown shore. 
Whose fairy headlands dream across Death's 
sea. 
And yet, a Star of Erin shines no more ! 

30 



OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES: 1809-1894 

DEAR Autocrat ! whose will was but to 
serve 
Thy willing subjects, be they far or near, 
To make the smile that upsprings from a tear, 
While yet the lips show sorrow's wistful curve. 
O kingly heart ! so full of warmth and verve, 
Can it be true that thou hast known the fear 
Of death at last, the touch that makes all sere, 
'Gainst which no courage may the spirit nerve ? 

No ! Death lays not his hand upon this head. 

He only bids her child kind Nature sing 
To sleep with echoes sweeter than aye bred 

Sea waves in Chambered Nautilus, and fling 
Her arms round him, whom age ne'er visited. 

Whose laughter ever kept its boyish ring ! 

Physician of the body and the mind. 

Whose eye and hand no better served the 

brain 
Than did the song thy lips might not disdain 

And the wise words that distant peoples bind 

In amity ! Death, sure, to thee is kind. 

And lets thee pass from thy sweet earthly reign. 
Like some new Ariel, knowing not earth's 
pain, 

Just as frost bugles 'thwart the forest wind. 

*'The last leaf upon the tree in the spring?" 
Why, nay, dear Poet, that could never be ! 

For the new leaves about thy form did cling 
And shared with thee their summer revelry. 

And now they bring thee to the harvesting 
Of autumn's golden ripe maturity ! 



BISMARCK 

QUENCHED is the second of the three 
grand lights 
Regnant so long in European skies. 
The Iron Chancellor superbly dies 
Just when, to give a people national rights, 
There, in the west, the arm of Justice smites. 
Grant him the homage due the strong and 

wise ; 
For seldom doth a star of Earth arise 
With lordlier ray to pierce our cloud-swept 
nights ! 

Gladstone and Bismarck, both in death's deep 
sleep. 
Thou only, aged Leo, dost remain 
To cast a faint, yet kindly, gleam afar. 
And haply, greet of Peace the kindling star — 
Thou only, who though least bound by life's 
chain, 
Still from thy sacred station watch dost keep ! 



DAUGHTER OF POLAND AND OF 
THAT OLD RACE 

Respectfully inscribed to Mme. Selma Kronold-Koert 

DAUGHTER of Poland, and of that old 
race 
Whose lips first whispered of the one high 

God, 
Proud e'en to bow beneath His chastening 
rod. 
If on their priestly robes they might but trace 

32 



His holy name ! Thou hast the subtile grace 
That will not spring forth from the West's 

cold sod ; 
Thine artist spirit flies, where others plod ; 

Where others grope, thy glance doth all embrace. 

*' Carmen" has snared hearts 'mid Spain's 
southern hills ; 
' ' Nedda ' ' coquets with gay, papilio wings ; 
** Elisabeth " a saintly flame distils ; 

Love, scorn, and pity ''La Gioconda " 
sings ; 
The while ' ' Manon ' ' with passionate sadness 
thrills, 
And ''Rachel's" voice with Hebrew faith 
outrings. 

BISMARCK AND THE KAISER 

GRIEF in his looks, such as the royal Lear 
Might have revealed, and yet so calm 
and wise, 
The hoary statesman, 'neath unkindly skies, 
Fortune's rude buffetings disdained to fear ; 
Haughty, erect, he stood, what time the sneer 
Replaced the incense of applauding cries ; 
Nor did his thoughts require of him disguise ; 
For they were noble as his eye was clear. 

But, lo ! " the winter of his discontent ' ' 

Now dies 'mid triumph such as warriors know 

When, conquerors, they hark the heavens rent 
With acclamations deep as ocean's flow; 

And see ! The emperor, his pride low-bent, 
Greets with a kiss his princely, ancient foe ! 

33 



GEORGE W. CHILDS: 1 829-1 894 

A LAD, uncheered by Fortune's early smile, 
Stepped forth to work his way and win 
him fame — 
A youth to whom no stain of toil meant shame, 
If Honesty commended him the while ; 
And he so wrought that things accounted vile, 
By a rare art no alchemist might claim, 
As purest gold 'neath his clean touch became ; 
For Goodness thus can blend and reconcile. 

He forced the world to grant him amity ; 
E'en Fortune ceased to frown and called him 
''Son;" 
And he was hailed a prince, whose blazonry 

By kindly words and kindlier deeds was won ; 
And now, in his last sleep, on bended knee. 
Mankind repeats immortal Love's ''Well 
done !" 



"DEAR ONE, BEYOND THE TOUCH 
OF TIME OR CHANCE" 

DEAR one, beyond the touch of time or 
chance. 
How strong the current of my heart's regret 
Sweeps back this night to when our last words 
met 
Amidst the agony of sob and glance ! 
Sharp wounds that memory, as wounds a lance. 
Whilst with their silver bars the moonbeams 

fret 
The chill snow fields, and the dark cedars net 
Their leaf-lacework and in the night-wind 
dance. 

34 



Afar, lost one, I gaze, to where you sleep, 

So yearning for an answer from your eyes 
That never slumber could, meseems, be deep 

Enough to guard you from my love's surprise ; 
That my heart's call must make your heart up- 
leap, 
To new, warm life, beneath the grave's dis- 
guise. 



CONSOLATION 

I MISS you, miss you ! Yet no tears come 
fast 
To moisten sorrow's waste of solitude ; 
Only the heart, beneath closed lips, doth 
brood. 
And pause at each memento of the past ; 
E'en as at roadside shrines a pilgrim, cast 
By some stern penance on a journey rude : 
I starve therewith, yet make thereof my food 
While day endures and while night-watches 
last. 

Yet list ! At times a shadowed happiness. 
Too fair for resignation, although less 

Than joy, is mine : as if the heavenly shore 
Loomed mist-clad, and a voice, for words too 

low. 
Swept round my soul in sweetest interflow — 

And then, then you are neai-e}- than of yore ! 



35 



AN EPITAPH 

A CRIPPLED woman erstwhile lived who 
wrought 
Coats and the like, as Tabitha once did ; 
Only she served for wage, her sad life hid 
Within a city lane ; yet those who sought 
Her there oft went away, most truly taught 
In patience, charity, and thoughts that bid 
Hope smile through tears ; for never was she 
rid 
Of what brings tears and sets all mirth at 
naught. 

Thus followed year on year, till some kind 
eye 
Saw in a graveyard, in the self -same town, 
Her name carved on a slab that low did lie ; 
But queenly roses veiled the earth's chill 
brown. 
And violets, clad to match the cloudless sky. 
Wove from their buds a royal purple crown. 



AN EASTERTIDE 

WHAT hurts and wounds and heartaches 
infants feel — 
Black eddies in the brook of childish glee ! 
And, surely, youth from sorrow is not free 
Long ere the graver years upon it steal ! 
Then think how many all a lifetime kneel 
To climb Want's Scala Santa wearily, 
Or walk, at best, well-clad, but miss the key 
That happiness' fair casket might unseal ! 

36 



Yet mark yon babe clap merry hand 'gainst 
hand ; 
Youth knows ambition, hope, and passion's 
bhss ; 

And often man has force at his command ; 

While Love e'en whispers 'mid pain's mad- 
dened cry : 
*' Death's touch may be, like my deep, fervid 
kiss, 

To pleading doubt the glad, supreme reply ! ' ' 



TO THE EYE OF LOVE 

THEY whisper ''he grows old," and bid 
me dwell 
Upon your slower speech, your slackened 

gait, 
Your cheek and brow deep -seamed, whilst 
ne'er elate 
Glows now your eye as once it did. They 

knell 
Thus wise ; but as for me, I, 'neath love's spell. 
All marks of age ignore in my heart's mate, 
Since love so blinds to fleeting things of fate 
That of their passage oft I could not tell ! 
Yet, blinding thus, love gives me other sight. 

Far dearer, of the changes in your soul. 
That yearly, daily casts off some old blight. 

To gain the charm of some new self-control. 
So let lips carp, love ! I reck not time's flight. 
Finding you nobler as we near time's goal. 



37 



UNION 

ONCE when disaster — nay, when lightest 
cloud 
Of darkness crossed the sunshine of my ways, 
Sudden my breast waved full of dread dis- 
mays. 
And, bending earthward as a reed is bowed, 
Oft would I crouch, cold as a corpse in shroud — 
So, radiating not e'en feeblest rays, 
Did then for me the fire of courage blaze ; 
So readily my spirit then was cowed ! 

But now ! Miraculous doth seem the change. 
Why, not fate's earthquake furies, nor fate's 
rude. 
Most maddened waves of vengeance could 
estrange 
My soul from its firm grasp of fortitude ! 

Love, means it not that your life is more dear 
To me than mine, that so I conquer fear ? 



THE TRUST OF LOVE 

I TRUST you as I trust eternal law. 
For were I not, dear, in such wise to trust, 
Your vow of love would seem less than this 
dust, 
I brush from glove upon, the wayside haw ! 
Therefore I bid all human ravens caw, 
Slander at will and satisfy their lust 
Of falsehood, since by Love's clear glance 
most just 
Your fealty is proved to show no flaw ! 

38 



Love's rights — a magna charta freely given — 
Brook not renewal, and, each other shriven 

Of doubt, its chains we now for aye off shake, 
And do erase their stigma from our life, 

And swear to be, whatever oaths men break. 
You, loyal husband, I, your faithful wife ! 



A SONNET 

USED to its showers, we would that spring 
might stay. 
And ruefully forecast the summer's heat; 
When summer hath some time usurped 
spring's seat. 
Oft we, forgetting dread, do summer pray 
To tarry, and when autumn comes we say, 
Thereto grovv^n used : * ' Fair time ! ' ' and 

hate the sleet ; 
Yet, wonted grown to winter, we entreat : 
'' O, crystal beauty ! Go not thou away !" 

Therefore I query if, when this life-pulse 

Stops short at fiat of those lips we dread. 
We shall so frame our souls to the indulse. 
Chill state toward which we now reluctant 
tread. 
That 'mid its formless dreams we'd fain not 

hark 
When Life anew calls us from dust and dark. 



39 



SOTTO MARE 

UNDER the purple billows of those straits 
Which Afric's cliffs from Calpe's hill 
divide — 
Ne'er ruffled by the mantling surface-tide — 
Rolls a dark flood past Hercules' famed gates, 
A flood whose force no scorching drought 
abates, 
That withers all the Atlas mountain side. 
The Midland Sea, by that vast stream sup- 
plied, 
Renews the commerce of her girdling States. 

So throbs there under men's brief cares and 
joys 

Striking the bass to treble tones of strife, 
A flood that loses not its equipoise 

Amid the strange vicissitudes of life ; 
But on, like those hid deeps of Tarif's reef, 
It sweeps, unchanged by any passing grief ! 



SONNET 

OAK prince, large-limbed, and helmeted, 
tall pine. 
As on me ye gaze down in silentness — 
Despite the breeze that round your boughs 
doth press 
And carry to you this quaint thought of mine — 
The passionate feelings which my heart incline 
To converse with you, do they naught confess 
Save my growth outward 'neath life's fuller 
stress 
And evolution ? This their only sign ? 

40 



Or is the evolution of yon trees 
In its way potent likewise, unities 

With my life seeking, and, with veiled eyes. 
Hands stretch ye to me ; while I think, in 
pride. 

Your muteness with my mind to magnetize ? 
Does life pulse not less strong on either side ? 

THE REJECTED JAPANESE LOVER 

Note. — In Japan it is etiquette for a lover to select some 
choice plant and place it at night in a vase or flower-pot 
that hangs suspended by three slender chains from the 
veranda of such dweUings as possess one or more marriage- 
able daughters. Should his suit be favored the floral gift 
is watered and carefully tended ; but if, on the contrary, 
his advances are coldly received by the maiden, or if her 
kinsfolk object to the alliance, the plant is found withered 
and forsaken in the garden-walk the following morning. 

WHERE golden-red the lush persimmon 
grows. 
Where dusk-green sway the pine boughs 

dreamfully 
I choose, my love, I choose at night for thee, 
With fervent vows, a fragrant-petaled rose — 
White as camellias of the isle whence blows 
A spice wind o'er the blissful, deep blue sea. 
And where the long-necked storks feed, tem- 
pest-free. 
On sweet palm-buds or ebon -glossy sloes ! 

I place it ' neath thy porch within a vase, 

To tell, love, how my heart for thee beats true. 
And of thy heart to beg a tender grace. 
When, wistfully, at dawn I pass thy door. 

Yet what see I, there, dying in the dew ? 
My rose, outcast, that whispers : ' ' Hope no 
more ! ' ' 

41 



TWO COLOR SONNETS 

SONETTO GIALLO 

' A /f IDST old-gold hues a dame with tawny 
iyl hair 
Sits, clad in amber silk ; her gold-green 

bird— 
A pet to indolent tortoise cat preferred — 
Praising his lady's fulvid tresses rare, 
Liquidly thrills the topaz -tinted air 

With song as rich as that in weird glens heard 
From nightingales, ere yellow moonbeams 
gird 
The dreaming maids who dark mantillas wear. 

Winds, softly blown from El Dorado, float 

Through citrine screens, and to the lady's feet 

Waft — see ! a gilt-edged, orange-scented 

note. 

Which, grasping lioness-like, she tears with fleet. 

Swift hands ; then reads, and frowning cries, 

''Artful, as are its writer's gold-brown eyes !" 

SONETTO AZZURRO 

Soft, silver moon rays streak the dim -blue 
night; 
In shadows cyanine a pale maid sleeps ; 
And watch, 'midst purpling boughs, an owlet 
keeps — 
Though of the maid he never hath a sight — 
Whilst glide the sapphire hours in silent flight. 
Solely on her a star from violet deeps, 
Through mists of amethyst and turquoise 
peeps. 
As calm she dreams, half-hid from azured light. 

42 



Yet, list ! a sound of shaken grapevine 
sheaves 

Startles the owlet 'midst the purpling leaves ; 
But the pale maiden never even sighs, 

Nor wakes to see a face that, bending down 

Over her casement hyacinthine-brown, 
Looks light of love from two dark, true blue 



eyes ! 



TWO SONNETS IN MEZZOTINT 

SONETTO BIANCO 

WHITE peaks climb o'er white peaks, and, 
spreading 'neath 
Them, roll vast wan-blue glaciers to a plain 
Whose firs and laurels scarcely show a stain 
Of color, for the snow, which wraps both heath 
And hamlet in its cyclopean sheath ; 

Whilst stillness, meet for lethal caves, doth 

reign 
Over veiled highway, garden, field and lane, 
Except when winds arise and gnash their teeth. 
Yet not less hueless nor less chill, for aye, 
A face hath grown that used to blush alway 
For beauty's sake— grown thus in tomb, so 
white 
That not a whiter rises where the gale 
Shrieks woe to seamen's graves 'neath boreal 
light— 
A face, 'mid shroud's folds, moveless, lily- 
pale. 



43 



SONETTO OSCURO 

Ebon-black mullions, web-wise, here cross-lance 
An alcove, through which, 'mid the moon- 
less skies, 
Like dying brands of guardless camp-fires, 
rise 
Stray stars in view, with such cloud circum- 
stance 
As well befits these murky trees which glance 
Stark limbs out, o'er a path all vague sur- 
mise. 
Where sight the keenest needs be very wise 
To tell a stone from bramble, save by chance. 
Then would your gaze revert and eye the 

room? 
Penumbra, like a taper-lighted tomb. 
Salutes you ! And I should be as the scene. 
Kept I not, deep in soul, a glimmer dim, 
Dark-lantern fashion ; but whose ray, so mean. 
Whispers, ' ' Faint not ; thou yet shalt glad 
lamps trim ! ' ' 



AN ALPINE LAKE 

FAR up, so high that e'en the sunbeams wear 
The solemn glamour of those altitudes 
Amid whose crags the lammergeier broods. 
Bidding defiance to the sharp-lipped air, 
A little lake rests in the mountain's care 
And scans the sky in all its varied moods ; 
When thunders peal, or when comes inter- 
ludes 
Of winds ^olian to murmur there. 

44 



For ages, in its lone expectancy, 

That highland pool has questioned time and 
space. 
To all the under world unknown, so free. 

So clothed with an austere Druidic grace 
That men would whisper there instinctively. 

As though intruders in some holy place. 



AN UPLAND BROOKLET. 

AN upland brooklet trickles with soft sound 
Over a wall of lichen-mantled rock, 
That was uplifted 'mid some cosmic shock 
When the earth's pulse less soberly did bound. 
And when the land in tropic garb was gowned 
With tall tree ferns, whose fronds would 

interlock 
To let amphibia beneath them flock 
What time the sun flung fiery javelins round. 

Listen how low the murmur of the stream ! 

Yet through it echoes a far-off refrain 
Of Alpine grandeur, crag, and glacier gleam ; 

As if the brook, so high above the plain, 
Shared the ecstatic secret of the dream 

That visits them who nigh Life's heart have 
lain. 



WITH NATURE 

HUSH me to-day on thy calm, gracious 
breast. 
Mother, new-risen from the wintry sod ! 
To-day let me forget that men must plod, 

45 



And delve, and grieve, since thy face speaks 

such rest, 
Such joy of peace, beyond all saintly quest 
That seeks the heights by angel footsteps 

trod; 
For thy deep eyes reflect the smile of God, 
E'en as cathedral panes the golden west. 

Divesting me of every slavish care, 

I hearken unto what thy spirit saith, 
Whose kind monitions so impregn the air 

That they become my very life and breath ; 
And clasped in thy warm arms that crush 
despair, 
My soul laughs at the dwindling shadow, 
death. 



THE MATIN BELL 

SWEET as the first low warble of a bird 
Fluttering o'er the night's yet unstirred 
deeps. 
On, through the vast obscurity, it sweeps; 
Mysterious, likewise, as the voices heard 
Ere dim eyes close, when dull ears catch no 
word 
Of friends who whisper, ''Hush, the tired 

one sleeps ! ' ' 
While Sorrow nigh the couch mute vigil 
keeps 
And strives to feel the calm by Faith con- 
ferred 
Thus now, before the coming of the light. 
Floats unto me the murmur of that chime, 
46 



Harmonious herald of the new day's fight 
'Gainst darkness ; listen how its echoes climb 

Yon airy heights, to welcome, in his might. 
The sun, who soon shall grace the hour of 
prime ! 

THE CITY AND THE RIVER 

A RIVER flowing 'thwart a town I saw, 
Where many a wharf pushed out from 
either bank, 
With many a warehouse, gabled, grim, and 
dank. 
Wedged in between; whilst, 'mid the night 

air raw, 
Turrets and domes loomed dimly, and the maw 
Of some huge jail uprose, whose chains must 

clank 
Dirge-like, meseemed, o'er roofs — set rank 
on rank — 
Of palace homes and cots of mud and straw. 

And, lo ! inverted, 'midst the misty night, 
Their million scintillations in that wave 

The city lamps reflected, all a-light ; 

And then one boat, like to a pilot brave, 

Forsook its quay and seaward bent its flight. 
While to its prow those spectral sparkles 
clave. 

ORION AND THE CITY. 

I SAW Orion rise o'er roof and spire 
'Mid a vast city, where full many a street 
Flowed, river-like, with waves of human feet ; 
While, from a hall lit by electric fire, 

47 



Crowds issued who had gathered to admire 
A singer famed ; and lively was the heat 
Of critic speech, as group and group did 
meet, 
To praise with warmth, or blame almost with ire. 
Yet not an eye turned from the lamp -hedged 
way 
To mark the splendor of the stellar shield 
That shone a billion ages ere earth's day. 

And that will lift on high its beamy field. 
In cosmic triumph, when mankind's life-play 
Shall, ages long, have ceased, by Death's 
hand sealed. 



IN PRIMAL DAYS 

IN primal days of Greek supremacy. 
When every shadow was personified, — 
When Fancy would in nothing be denied 
The exercise of boundless liberty, — 
There dwelt a fascinating mystery 

In every glade, where nymphs and fauns did 

glide ; 
While oreads were on the heights espied. 
And sirens filled the waves with melody. 

For us such fictions long have been dispelled ; 
Yet have we gained a charm of scenic phrase 
And are by psychic influences held 

More curious than the fabled Cretan maze ; 
And what if now the lyre's refrain be quelled? — 
Athwart our souls the symphony's echo 
strays. 

48 



TO ^'A RED, RED ROSE" 

VOLUPTUOUS rose ! ere thy brief day 
be fled, 
Ere earth take, leaf by leaf, from thee the 

price 
Of this wine-ruddy blush, which would entice 
Fancy, e'en as a bee, to thrust its head 
Into thy cup of sweetness darkly red, 

I would give thee, in phrase of rare device, 
To one whose picturings of paradise 
Do purity and passion fitly wed. 

Thou breathest not alone of Sharon's plain, 
Church portal, garden wall, and cottage 

porch ; 
Thou likewise art the soul-flame of some 
torch 
Held high in flowery feasts at Psestum's fane ; 
And thou art wrought of sunbeams that did 
scorch 
The groves where Persia's bard sang love's dis- 
dain ! 



THE FORSAKEN HOMESTEAD 

MUTE stands this old white mansion and 
forlorn ; 
Snows match them with its ruined porticoes. 
And now and then a gust of night-wind blows 
The wintry bloom up 'gainst yon casement shorn 
Of curtain and of glass. Yet here was born 
Many a joy to bless life's count of woes. 
And in these doors — too warped this night 
to close ! — 
Many a star-heard sigh foretold love's morn. 
49 



The last to dwell within its low-ceiled walls 

Now lives in one of those grand modern piles 
Where flash electric rays athwart the halls 
O'er rare moquettes and statues' marble 
smiles ; 
Yet thence, somehow, ne'er such a splendor 
falls 
As once the old home lamp threw on the 
tiles ! 



MOONLIGHT IN THE SMALL HOURS 

CALM as the sleep of one at perfect rest, 
In mind and heart with heaven and the 
world, 
The moonlight of the small hours lies im- 
pearled 
On twig and branch ; while, on pine-boughs 

impressed, 
It turns them snow-white as King Henry's crest. 
That oft wooed victory, nor ever furled 
Its plumes to foemen when rebellion hurled 
Her darts to stay its patriotic quest. 

These shadows fill my spirit with their peace, 

A quietude more eloquent than speech : 
As if one touch a hand that could release 
From peril, though storm winds should rave 
and screech — 
Such sense of trust as bids Fear's whispers cease 
And lifts my soul far from Doubt's chilling 
reach. 



SO 



BEFORE THE DAWN 

THE midnight darkness pales ; my lamp 
burns low, 
And yesterday's long echo now becomes 
As faint as league-remote tattoo of drums : 
One with the past its agitations grow ; 
While, like a daring oarsman, thought doth row 
Far forth to where a new-born day-breeze 

hums 
O'er mist-enshrouded waves, and half-be- 
numbs, 
Before it can a quicker pulse bestow. 

And then, amidst the stillness and the chill — 

The semi -chaos of this neutral hour 
When feeblest shows the force of nerve and 
will. 
When children, roused from dreams, in 
terror cower, — 
The morning star, clear as a harp's first thrill, 
Beams its evangel, hails the coming power ! 

THE TAJ MAHAL 

Suggested by W. F. Dix's " Intaglios of the East" 

FAIR beyond fairest speech of mortal tongue, 
Love's fire wrought into marble imagery, 
A wordless yet impassioned litany 
For centuries by earth to heaven sung, 
There, on the Jumna's banks, to life hath 
sprung 
The Taj in womanliest majesty ; 
E'en might a milk-white lily bud so be 
Upon Nirvana's mystic ocean flung. 

51 



Purer of aspect than the purest snow, 
Yon dome and minars cleave the Indian 
sky, 
Begirt with pahns, dusk cypresses arow. 
And peach-boughs where the bulbul 
comes to sigh ; 
While e'er, 'neath moonlight or the stars' 
soft glow. 
They tell of love that doth all deaths 
defy. 



DISCONTENT 

THERE stretch the cool green waves, white 
foam, gray rocks ; 
Here, close at feet, these mounds of tawny 

sand; 
While strands, mixed hued, of sunlit cloud 
imband 
The blue deeps where at heaven's door ocean 

knocks. 
Darting athwart them, gulls whirl in sparse 
flocks. 
As now the breeze is making in to land ; 
But not a sail in sight on either hand. 
And, save the surf -beat, silence all inlocks. 
Life may be full of color, yet one waits. 
Unsatisfied, at bar of unpassed gates. 

Owner of much, but asking evermore 
That fate would other, fairer gifts bestow — 
Something not cloud, nor wings, nor surf- 
born snow, 
Nor cool green waves upon the tawny 
shore. 

52 



COMPENSATION 

Affectionately inscribed to Horace L. Traubel 

HOW oft we grope, blind beggars on Life's 
way, 
Or walk as folk in some lane intricate. 
With head downcast and unelastic gait. 
Thinking how stale all is, and dull and gray, 
And what a bitter burden is the clay 

Wherefrom we have been shaped by clumsy 

Fate; 
While scarce we deem as worthy our estate 
As that of shadows lost in blaze of day ! 

Till, with no token, comes a gleam of 
grace — 
The clasp of hands long severed by harsh 
Time, 
The charm or hue of thought on some dear 
face. 
Or reminiscent pathos of a chime — 
And, free of soul and with firm tread, we 
pace 
The plenteous prairies of a griefless 
clime. 



53 



LYRICS 



MONITIONS 

I YEARN to feel the dusky kiss of Night ; 
I hunger for the vision now unseen, 
The essence pulsing 'neath each veil and 
screen — 
All that eludes the whirlwind of Time's flight. 
This world of seeming grows so stale and 
small, 
Who, with the larger longing, but would 

roam 
Beyond the limits of earth's touch and 
tone, 
Where strange new gleams on unknown 
glories fall ? 
I yearn to walk the inner way, so near, 
Yet further from the course we blindly run 
Than, from ours, moves the utmost cosmic 
sun — 
I yearn till through desire mine eyes grow clear. 
For symbols, in themselves, are these de- 
sires. 
Vague marks on fly-leaves of a book 

unturned, 
Faint hints of fairer knowledge yet un- 
learned. 
Tokens of Life 'neath grander stellar fires. 
Hark ! Hear I not the tread of Destiny ? 
In this expectant and mysterious hour. 
Thrilled by the stirrings of a latent power, 
I touch the robe of Immortality ! 



57 



THE INFINITE SYMPATHY 

LONG, long ago I left the way 
Sought by good folks when they would 
pray. 
To me their ' ' straight path ' ' seemed not 
clear ; 
Thickly, for me, brier and thorn 
Made either border harsh and drear ; 
So I forsook it, one glad morn. 
Nor evermore would I retreat 
To supplicate the ' ^ Mercy Seat, ' ' 
Because I felt the vast command 

Of increate Infinity 
Could not be stayed by my weak hand. 
Upraised however piously. 
Then afterward, as in a brook. 
Upon Love's face I came to look ; 
While in my breast a tender fear 

Rebuked me, as with selfishness. 
And for Love's solitude a tear 

Descended, and content grew less. 

So now, though I for nothing plead 

That may serve soul's or body's need, 

I ever seek Love's unseen ear, 

To give my meagre dole of cheer ; 

For ' ' God is Love, ' ' and Love must yearn 

To feel our spirit's close embrace. 
And Love's great heart with joy must burn 

To have our love -thoughts people space. 



58 



IN EARLY WINTER 

Affectionately inscribed to RUDOLPH HENDRICKS 

SEEMING to wear a tawny hue 
Till lost in distance-hazy blue, 
Pale shadows o'er yon slope are borne, 
Like phantoms of the garnered corn. 

Yet see ! where 'mongst bleak trees they 

glide. 
They darken, as though joy had died 
Beneath those boughs, all gray and gaunt, 
With twigs that snap like some keen taunt. 
Oft there the little wind-whirls rest 
An instant on the dead leaves' breast ; 
Then, sudden, start afresh and rise 
With utterance of impish cries. 
For far on high they hark the roar 
Of mighty kinsmen, wild and frore, 
Tossing and leaping in the shrouds 
Of dismal passing ships of clouds. 
Until the last faint sun ray fades 
And frost and gloom enwrap the glades ; 
And lofty wind and humble breeze. 
With the lone slope, in silence freeze. 

'MID SUMMER NOONTIDE DREAMS 

' IV yT ID summer noontide dreams 

IVX When tree boughs cease to sway. 
Though sad the fancy seems, 
It charms me in a way — 

It charms me, yes, to flee 

In spirit to a place 
Where, full of liberty, 

I erst looked on Joy's face. 

59 



To flee away, and there 
To lay me down to sleep 

Until the grass shall dare 

Round feet and hands to creep. 

Round feet and hands and breast, 
Round lips and brow and eyes, 

Clasping me in sweet rest, 
Aye, hid from sun and skies. 

While over me the song 

Of meadow larks shall ring, 

As once it thrilled along 

The rose-paths of the spring. 



FEBRUARY 

HOMELY, with sparse gray hair and 
oldish look. 
Nothing to fix the unobservant gaze. 
She every morn the path of drudgery took, 
To tread it far beyond the twihght haze. 
Yet, now and then, the eye of insight keen 

Might see flit over her set, faded face 
Remembrances of beauty that had been — 
The pressed-rose fragrance of a vanished 
grace. 
And sometimes, when the stress of toil was o'er, 
A smile of youth about her lips would cling, 
As if she looked, through some long-snow- 
bound door. 
On violets and song-birds all a-wing. 



60 



CONFESSION 

I AM so humble that I dare not say 
The precious words which for an answer 
pray ; 
I am so haughty that I could not take 
Aught you might give me, save for Love's own 
sake. 
I am content, 'mid care, or grief, or task, 
To let my heart in your remembrance bask — 
The only sunshine needed for its bloom, 
A beam that puts to flight the thought of 
gloom. 
For, in the darkness when day sounds take 

wing, 
Recalling you, my heart shall softly sing ; 
As, amongst leafage of some dew- chilled lawn, 
A robin greets the dusk ere cometh dawn. 
And with my heart I am so wholly free 
That I must give and give spontaneously, 
Nor ever grudge, though no heart make 

return 
So long as in this world life's lamp shall 
burn. 
Yet, should a true response at last be mine, 
A priceless bounty from the hand divine, 
My heart, for joy, would neither laugh nor 

leap. 
But, like a shining, sun -kissed shower, weep. 



6i 



JAYME 

JAYME, Jayme ! Spanish name 
Whispered 'neath Valencian skies 
On my hps it is a flame 

Fed by your deep, fervid eyes. 

Jayme, Jayme ! mystic dreams 
Hover round and with me dwell. 

Fairer than were Tempe's streams, 
If myself your name I tell. 

Why, I know not, neither care ; 

Yet when you are near, the time 
Festive seems, and through the air 

Joy bells, for me, chime and chime. 

Jayme, Jayme ! while I live 
Naught more exquisite or true 

Unto me can Love e'er give 

Than the treasured thought of you. 



IN THE WEST 

OVER there, in the sunset west, 
A dear one sleeps whom my heart loves 
best — 
Over there, where the daylight dies 
'Midst the perfect silence of the skies. 

Over there, in the darkling west, 

How deep, how deep, is my dear one's rest ! 

So deep there is no joy nor pain 

May ever break its quiet again. 

62 



Over there, in the starlit west, 

Tall spruce-trees chant o'er my dear one's 

breast. 
And, ' thwart their boughs, draw from above 
Gleams of the splendor of deathless love. 



TRUE GRIEF 

SUCH quietude is here, for outward eyes ! 
Scarce any effort mars the cheerfulness 
That to a busy world the lips confess, 
Yet that the heart most utterly denies. 

For grief is cunning, gentle sir or dame ! 
Say what ye will, when its own depth it feels. 
True grief its hoarded bitterness conceals 

With skill that puts a miser's craft to shame. 

It knows to smile not less than villainy ; 

It hides, 'neath roses, hyssop, thorn, and rue; 

And in its pride but to the chosen few 
Will it consent to show its misery. 



PAIN AND DEATH 

IN the deep night a shape drew near my bed, 
A dark, grim thing ; whereat I moaned 
in dread ; 
* ' Begone, O Death ! Not yet thine hour is 

due." 
Then on his face a pleading glance I threw. 

63 



But at mine imploration he down-bent 

An eye of mockery, that with hatred blent, 

And sneered : '' It is not Death, poor wretch ! 

In vain 
Callest thou me in such wise. I am Pain, 
Through heat and cold I wing my stealthy way, 
And by the couch of sickness love to stay." 

Yet, lo ! when night began at last to wane, 
And Dawn almost made heard her sweet refrain, 
A pale, sad form approached my pillow side — 
Gently, how gently, did his footsteps glide ! 
Glad grew my soul. I whispered: ''This is 

Life, 
Come with the day to end for me Pain's 

strife!" 
But as I raised mine eyes to see him smile. 
And mark his gaze free of all taint of guile. 
Words from him broke that made my heart up- 

leap : 
'' I am the angel that brings dreamless sleep." 



YOUTH AND I 

' 'T~^IS said that Youth and I have parted, 
X And at the words I breathe the sigh 

Of one who, though not valiant-hearted. 
The cruel truth will not deny. 

Ask you what quarrel wrought such issue ? 

Which was recreant to Love's vow? 
The matter is of so close tissue 

It could not be unravelled now. 

64 



Ohce passed, thought we, a harmless 
''Stranger;" 

We brushed against his garment's skirt. 
Time was his name ; but where the danger ? 

Who dreamed his presence could do hurt ? 

Yet suddenly there entered in us 

A subtile palsy of delight ; 
Olden gay pastimes could not win us ; 

Bright hours grew dull, in our despite. 

And as it, in most cases, chances. 

Wider the breach yawned day by day, 

Until, with cold, averted glances. 
At last each went the lonely way. 

Yet still, sometimes, in furtive meetings 

We look each other in the face, 
Striving to give coy, silent greetings, 

That may recall the dear, lost grace. 

Our hands outstretch, as if for clasping ; 

Our lips fond phrases seem to seek ; 
Then draws the ''Stranger" nigh, and, gasp- 
in cr 

We turn away ; we dare not speak. 



THE SECRET 

SOFTLY, winds ! softly blow- 
Nay, do not blow, soft winds ! 
But whisper low. 

Low, sweet, and calm as mountain pines 
That ne'er the tempest know. 

65 



I have a secret — hush ! 

That ye must never tell 
As on ye rush ; 

But hidden with you let it dwell, 
And none its beauty crush. 

Quick ! take it from my heart, 

Lest I should selfishly 
Refuse to part 

With aught of its dear entity — 
Snatch it, and southward start ! 

But still, for you, I fear 

It is too sadly sweet. 
It needs the tear. 

The sob, and the fierce, fatal heat 
Of Sorrow's lips, that sear. 

And yet a moment stay 

Your viewless, downy wings. 

Till I do pray 

You pardon that my spirit clings 

To it, and must, alway. 



LOVE AND AMBITION 

IN the young artist's ecstasy. 
Drunken with praise of myriad eyes. 
She laughed beneath the starlit skies, 
And whispered : '^ Naught shall conquer me ! ' 

' ' What glance, what touch shall bid me stay 
My step, or still my cry to Fame, 
From whose fair hand a wreath I claim 

Not woven for earth's common clay?" 

66 



No pleasure's charm, no prayer's grace 
Should make her, swerving, miss the goal 
Set for her earnest, haughty soul, 

That brooked no secondary place. 

From Love she turned ; she mocked his chains. 
Because she felt so truly bold. 
And had, she deemed, a heart so cold 

And an ear deaf to all fond strains. 

Yet when the play of Life was done 
And the shadowy curtain fell. 
She breathed a name I dare not tell ; 

But Love, at last, yes, Love had won ! 



IT IS NOT TRUE 

IT is not true 
That joy lies dead, 
Although to-day our hearts have bled- 
For me and you 
It is not true. 

It is not true 
That life is vain. 
If from our tears life one drop gain 

Of Love's pure dew — 

It is not true. 

It is not true 
That death can end 
What joy's loss doth almost amend 

'Neath sorrow's hue — 

It is not true. 

67 



By heaven's blue, 
By passion's fire, 
By our love's deep, yet chained desire. 

It is not true, 

It is not true. 



THEN AND NOW 

IN the old time my heart could speak, 
Could whisper back its love reply. 
With eye downcast and blushing cheek, 
Beneath the summer's glad blue sky. 

In the old days my lips did yearn 
Beneath their mask of modesty. 

When all Love's charm was yet to learn — 
And Passion's fervid errantry. 

But now Love seems a calm, sweet sleep ; 

'Mid the chill gray thus hath it grown — 
So sorrow tried, so strong, so deep, 

Like a grand organ's deepest tone. 

And now my soul so high doth soar. 
Naught lesser than Love's face it sees. 

Where unfaith ne'er can reach it more 
Amid God's own infinities ! 



68 



THE MEADOW LARK 

IN the dim dawn, while yet the mists bespray 
With woolly films these fields which now I 
view ; 
In the vague neutral hour, before the day 
Marks the pure skies reflect her orb's pure 
blue ; 

'Mid the mind's first uncertain waking gleams, 
With the ear scarce to consciousness rewon, 

A sound as from the fading shore of dreams, 
Outspeeds the gold quadriga of the sun ; 

A flute -clear strain, that floats above the meads. 
Mixing its echoes with the morning breeze : — 

That seems to sing a greeting to the weeds, 
And all the lowland's humble entities. 

I hark, but cannot see the minstrel bird. 

Though well I know that, as he upward 
springs. 

Not on him is the loftier flight conferred : 
Earth keeps anear her those impetuous wings. 

I hear him celebrate his happiness ; 

Yet find I not a sad note with it blent ? 
As if he dared at times a wish confess — 

To soar, to lose in strife his life's content. 



AT SUNSET 

LAST night, while yet the shadows gathered 
pale, 
I heard a thrush, from o'er the meadow way. 
In some secluded thicket of the vale, 

69 



His music-laden pater-noster say, 
More fraught with faith than aught our lips 
may pray. 

And just because of its exceeding trust 
I listened as if chained to that retreat. 

A-tremble at the faintest west-wind gust 
That came to frolic round the garden seat, 
Or stir the sleepy grass beneath my feet. 

I did not ask to learn the secret sense, 

The perfect import of the songster's call ; 

I only knew it bore my spirit hence, 
Upon the rippling of its rise and fall, 
To feel the Love that binds the all in all. 

Nor can I tell what instant its strain passed 
Into the flood-tide of night's symphony — 

Death, as we name it, though it is the last. 
Supreme expression of Life's entity. 
When the soul finds how truly it is free ! 



NOVEMBER WINDS 

NOVEMBER winds, that drearily 
Moan over brown, denuded plains. 
Come hither, and relate to me 

The story hid 'neath your wild strains ! 

To-night my spirit is akin 

To your woe -burdened savageness ; 
It hears strange music in the din 

And tumult of your fierce distress. 

70 



Your lamentations pierce my breast, 
And touch a stormy current there, 

Which, like a river of unrest, 

Echoes the voice of your despair. 

The elements that men call dumb 
Instinct are with the cosmic life. 

From one great source all passions come. 
To intermix in fruitful strife. 

We only dream we dwell apart ; 

Brothers we are of sun and wind ; 
We laugh or weep with Nature's heart ; 

Our moods are phases of her mind. 



WIND VOICES IN MARCH 

NO cunning measure do I sing ; 
I only come with throbbing breast, 
From out the midnight's dark unrest, 
To whisper what the March winds bring. 



I lean here, on the window-sill, 

And, while the hours glide down time's 
stream, 

I hark, as in some changeful dream : 
And all the house is dumb and chill. 



Listen ! the winds their force subdue. 
Till on the eaves their frigid stress 
Falls like a zephyr's light caress 

Where violets match heaven's blue. 



And I am ready to give tears 
As tribute to such lullaby, 
Which touches me as would a sigh 

From far-away and gladder years. 

But soon succeeds a tumult fierce, 

A clash of chords, as though some harp 
Rehearsed a war-chant, rude and sharp. 

Where donjon walls the heavens pierce. 

A-sudden I grow strangely bold : 
Then tingles in my veins a fire ; 
I feel revive in me such ire 

As stirred the pilgrim hosts of old. 

And now ring outcries on the air. 
Like maddened curses of the lost 
By Stygian waters lashed and tossed — 

The speech of uttermost despair ! 

I shudder to the very quick ; 

I shut mine eyes in nameless dread ; 

As if to mark some ghostly tread, 
My breath I hold, mine ears up-prick ! 

Then, then, at last, a cadence comes. 

Like music in a fairy dell ; 

Their love the cooling ring-doves tell 
And o'er the thyme the blithe bee hums. 



72 



A MARCH FANTASY 

CLOSE-CURTAINED is the window-pane, 
But through it clamors, keen and cold. 
The tempest trumpeter's refrain. 

Stirring the earth 'neath frost and mould. 

Wild, harsh, implacable, it leaps 

Across the waste of last year's bloom ; 

And yet, meseems, forth from it sweeps 
Enchantment o'er the night-time gloom 

And plays upon my latent pride. 
Waking in me a long-mute voice ; 

As if my soul some force defied. 
And in the combat should rejoice 



As if a demon rent his chain, 
A demon captive in my breast. 

And echoed back that storm's fierce strain, 
In merriment of mad unrest. 



Until, in truth, I dare to deem 

It is a spirit of the vast, 
Snared in his own trap in a dream 

That plagued some midnight of the past. 



MYSTICISM 

LAST night a host of cloud-borne fiends 
Swept, shrieking, from the sullen east ; 
Like ghouls bent on some horrid feast, 
They jeered athwart my casement screens. 

73 



Reason whispered : ' ' Be not afraid. 

'Tis but the blast in wintry boughs !" 

Yet Fancy so did me arouse 
That all my spirit grew dismayed. 

And, when again I looked, the skies 

Were blacker-garbed than night could make, 
And from their depths worse yells did break, 

With still more horrible replies. 

Yet, sudden, whilst I listened, lo ! 

A silver sword-flash cleft the gloom — 

A scimitar of peaceful doom. 
With joy and courage in its glow. 

Reason murmured : ' * It is the moon ! ' ' 
But Fancy would not deign to hear. 
Yet laid aside with smiles her fear. 

To drink the health of night's high-noon. 

For well she deemed the right had won. 
As in some battle waged by men, 
And saw night's orb light field and fen. 

As 'twere of Love the risen sun ! 



THE SILENT LAND 

THE Silent Land. What undefined desire 
Wakes at these words, like to the lam- 
bent fire 
Seen over marshland wastes, at dead of night, 
Flickering far in weird, uncanny flight ! 

74 



The Silent Land, which poets love to name ; 
Mysterious region, where the present frame 
Of all that is, beyond our fancy's range, 
Doth yield itself to supersensual change. 

The Silent Land, where, dread as olden fates, 
Vague, sombre shadows guard the entrance 

gates. 
And where glide through the vapor sudden 

gleams, 
As 'twere, a spectral day's sunsetting beams. 

The Silent Land, whereon that wan sun-glow 
Spreads, as a red moon-ray o'er plains of snow. 
Upon which birch trees lean across the track 
Where wolves are wont to race in famished 
pack. 

The Silent Land, a broad domain, so still 
That its deep quiet gives the heart a thrill — 
As when night-fowl sail by on noiseless wing — 
A thrill such as no sound hath power to bring. 

The Silent Land, which stretches on and on, 
Dim outlined as the mist-veiled hills of dawn ; 
Vistas where human vision feebly gropes 
'Midst the long cypress boughs that gloom the 
slopes. 

The Silent Land. No breeze ; and yet what 

wafts 
Are these which play about the portal shafts. 
Chilling the white-lipped wanderers who wait 
To pass the boundary of the unknown State ! 

75 



THE GEM WITHOUT A SETTING 

Note. — A recently advanced hypothesis assumes that 
diamonds may be a product of interstellar origin. 

ONE dusky night, far down the sky 
A meteor sped, and from it fell. 
As at my feet, a spark of light 
That dazed my sight. 

Elusively it there did lie 
Till I bent low, as 'neath some spell, 
And took it, clasped it fervently 
Close unto me. 

" A gem," methought, *' from out the heart 
Of some lost world dispersed through space ; 
A diamond, that clearly speaks 
Of stellar peaks." 

How I have treasured it apart, 
As 'twere some memoried, dear face. 
Till a rare setting I can find 
Round it to bind ! 

A frame-work dainty, yet so strong. 
To match its every color tone ; 
Like music, rippling, strangely sweet. 
Mine eye to greet. 

But nay ! I ne'er shall list that song. 
Never such splendor may I zone 
With any circlet of desire 
Meet for its fire. 



76 



-LIKE CRESSETS IN THE ICE-KING'S 
HALLS" 

LIKE cressets in the Ice-King's halls 
The stars gleam in the sky's bleak arch ; 
The fields beyond the manor walls 
Lie ravaged by the blast of March. 

A maiden nigh the hearth-fire hears 

The wooing of an honest boy, 
Whose heart, free of all jealous fears, 

Pleads through his eyes for love and joy. 

But she, in whimsical dissent. 
Ignores the sunshine of his soul, 

And, careless, talks of life's content 
Where South Sea waves in languor roll. 



The stars glow like the ruby sands 

In Oriental fantasies : 
The years have sped ; a lady stands 

Beneath the fragrant orange trees. 

But solitude and silence wait 
Upon the glamour of the scene. 

Whereof, in woman's fairest state, 

She seems the lovely, uncrowned queen. 

Yet now, with memory's clear eyes, 

She backward looks, and harks that blast, 

And learns too late her southern skies 
Were in the northern, love-lit past ! 



77 



THE LITTLE VISITOR FROM THE MOON 

IT was at night, when noises oft astound, 
That suddenly I heard a click resound, 
Making me, though immersed in books of law, 
Turn from the lamp -lit page in quizzing awe, 
To ascertain if visible, and how shaped 
The creature was, whence that odd sound 
escaped — 

When, lo ! beside my chair, with gesture spry. 
There moved a tiny wight, scarce one inch 

high- 
Black as a lump of glossy cannel coal, 
And furnished with two lights which seemed 

to roll 
And, in the most pronounced electric guise. 
To serve as substitutes for human eyes. 



''Whence and what art thou, midget of the 

dark?" 
I asked in wonderment ; when, swift, a spark, 
Darting upon me from each vibrant light, 
And dazzling my somewhat bewildered sight, 
Gave due assurance that the mite had life. 
And vivid intellect with humor rife. 

For then, in that quaint telegraphic click. 
It kindly told, just as a watch would tick. 
The whence, the wherefore, and the how it 

came — 
Though if I can't recall I'm not to blame ! — 
Enough that it had trod in Fame's big shoon 
Amid the social fittest of the Moon. 

7^ 



''Being," it quoth, ''sans atmosphere you 

know, 
We Moon folks just spring up ; we never grow. 
We own no liking for your blending shades. 
Your varied intervals and subtile grades. 
In physics, morals, and high mental play. 
Our method swerves not from plain yea and 



nay." 



While this sharp dick-clack, save in dotted 



rune. 



Is our sole language and our only tune. 
With us electric shocks uphold the State ; 
We live, and work, and die as they dictate. 
We are, in fact, with all our frowns and smirks, 
A conscience series of magnetic jerks ! 

" Yet hark. Terrestrial ; for my words are true : 

We once existed just as you now do. 

Until long ages dried our ambient air, 

And put us on this pure electric fare. 

When water, wind, and gas from earth are 

gone, 
Like me you'll dwindle to a clicking pawn." 

" Wholly electric both in form and mind. 
No doubt, the change will suit your eager kind. 
Averse from every action slow or slack. 
You'll stand no compromise 'twixt white and 

black ; 
And marking but dense night or blazing noon. 
You'll comprehend our status on the Moon !" 



79 



THE CEDAR TREE IN WINTER 

GREEN as the gem that Hope's eye loves 
to greet, 
The cedar smiles on whiter' s wind-swept 
waste ; 
So might a fair nurse, from whose willing feet 
Charity had all selfish tremor chased. 



THE ESTHONIAN MOTHER AND THE 
WOLVES 

Note. — What is related in the accompanying verses 
actually took place in the year 1807, and we should add 
that, alter reaching a place of safety and telling her fearful 
story, the wretched woman was immediately killed by a 
young man, who, without waiting to reflect and pity, hor- 
rified at such cowardice in a mother, caught up an axe and 
at one blow cut off her head. 

WITH horse and sleigh, along a road 
Where snow-crowned pine trees loom, 
A peasant mother bears her load 
Of three babes through the gloom. 

No calm, white stars. 
Lighting the hours 

When dismal night-winds moan, 
Pierce through the gray 
Of clouds that stray 

Toward Viborg's marshes lone. 

Bu' that is not the wind which howls 

In strange, uncanny guise ! 
The woman knows those famished growls ; 

The poor horse onward flies ! 
' ' Mother, dear mother ! ' ' with a start, 
Exclaims one frightened little heart. 
80 



" Oh, my poor child, 
Hush ! Hoarsely wild. 

It is the wolves that bark ! 
Hungry and cold, 
They grow so bold 

Within this forest dark ! 

' ' Their famished yell 
The echoes swell 

Far down the birchwood glen. 
See ! full of ire, 
Their eyes of fire 

I count — twice five, then ten ! 

* ' Draw close, my child ! 
Dear Saviour mild. 

Why come those feet so near ! 
Where shall we flee? 
Their forms I see 

With deep and abject fear ! 

'^ O Heaven, send us grace ! 

Those jaws together crush ! 
And, gaining on our pace, 

The beasts upon us rush ! 

* ' If but the wind the snow upstirs, 
'Twill keep their fangs at bay. 

And we may reach the clump of firs 
Where broadens out the way ! 

' ' But they leap along our tracks ! 

Make haste, my brave old horse ! 
And those teeth gnash at our backs 

With fast-increasing force ! 



* ' To save the older two 

Must I let baby go ? 
O God, what shall I do ; 

My hands, they tremble so ! 

' ' Two are left — yet these brute fiends — 

Father, forgive the wrong ! — 
From the sleigh my Ivan leans ! 

Die the weak, then, for the strong ! 

'^ Yet closer still they come. 

And clammy grows my cheek — 
Must I fill up the sum ? 

Is my soul so vilely weak ? 

**Is it, indeed, too late 
To save him from such a fate ? 
Beat, coward heart, beat fast ; 
He is thy pride, thy last ! ' ' 

' ' Dear mother, ' ' cries the four-year-old, 

''Am not I very good ?' ' 
She shakes — the wretch ! — shakes off his hold, 

And gives the brutes their food ! 

And now the wolves have fled ; 
But the babes, the babes are dead ! 

Yes, all are dead and gone ; 
Yet she is left, 
The mother, God-bereft, 

To face the wintry dawn ! 



82 



IN THE RAIN 

PULSELESS the air, in sullen rest ; 
Sad is the look the meadows wear ; 
While, from each leafy, dripping crest, 

The trees in moody silence stare. 
Gray skies their color-nullity 

Outspread above the dismal earth ; 
And one lone bird pipes tearfully 

The requiem^of vanished Mirth. 
And the long, cheerless hours proceed. 

Their minutes weighted as with chains ; 
Only the patient heart takes heed 

To dream of sunshine when it rains ! 



FERNS ON THE HEIGHTS 

FAR, far up the rocky cliff 
Grow sprays of swaying fern, 
Upon whose gracile frondlets green 

The rays of noontide burn — 
A liliputian forest. 

That drinks the ardent light. 
Whilst, tardy-vanned 'mid azure sheen. 
The dove-white clouds take flight. 

From so rare coigne of vantage 

The ferns defiance glance 
Upon me as I watch them there. 

The while winds laughing dance — 
Warm winds that slyly whisper : 

' ' We know where bluebirds nest 
In boughs no hunter's gun shall dare 

To come nigh or molest. ' ' 

83 



The roaming honey-seekers 

Have scarce explored the place, 
So high it lies, so far apart 

From haunts of their sweet chase ; 
And should the winds keep secrets, 

It shall all quiet rest. 
Even until frost goblins dart 

Along, with jibe and jest. 

Oh, festive ferny dwellers. 

That clothe the craggy height 
With gentle graces meet for dells 

Of pastoral delight ! 
May no feet try to reach you, 

May hands your fronds respect, 
The while you hark the bland wind-bells 

In happiest neglect ! 



Till winter still their chiming 

In clash of tempest song. 
Till snow and ice bind hill and plain, 

And chain the rivers strong — 
Then on your lofty eyry 

You ferns shall, shrivelled, cling 
Till April, robing you again. 

Make new sweet wind-bells ring. 



^'LEEWAY" (OR DRIFTING APART) 

YOU plead : '' Together let us fare 
And, as of old, the glad days share ! ' ' 
For whilst I in the shadow stray, 
You ever walk the sunlit way. 

You urge : ' * Come now, with ready feet, 
Unto our one-time dear retreat !" 
But though I, acquiescent, smile. 
My heart is elsewhere all the while. 

At times you dimly mark the change, 
With eyes so marvellingly strange. 
Then, from you — why should I deny ? — 
To hide the ugly truth I try ! 

Perhaps it is a sort of pride 

To keep you serving at my side ; 

Perhaps I merely do not choose 

To give you or myself *' the blues !" 

I've liked to hear the sweet old name, 
Though to it I no more had claim : 
As to an echo oft we cling, 
When long before the song took wing ! 

And sometimes — we must be thus weak !— 
I've put my lips to your warm cheek. 
No Judas' kiss, though all love's glow 
Had vanished from it — well I know ! 

But, come ! A truce to cunning lies ! 
Here is the truth, without disguise : 
So living was the love I knew, 
I've loathed to show it dead to you ! 

85 



ALAS, THE CHILL, WILD NIGHT 1' 

ALAS, the chill, wild night ! 
It fills me with dismay — 
Blight of the blast, and blight 
Over my garden tossed — 
Bitter blight of the frost. 

Turning my gems to clay ! 
For this my garden was a joy. 
Where gorgeous butterflies would toy 
With the sun's pure, unstinted gold. 
Ere ceased June's roses to unfold. 
But now — the night, the blast ! 

Slaying my dear, last hope ! — 
Only forebodings cast 

Their ghastly gleams, where grope 
My hands along the walls 
Of wind-beleaguered halls ! 
Yet here the gladdest laughter dwelt ; 
Here, vowing faith, gay wooers knelt. 
As at Love's magic palace gate ; 
Whilst birds sang carols — mate to mate. 
I would I need not hark 

Unto the moan, the wail 
Of this mad storm ! So stark, 
So cold my pulses grow ! 
My spirit fee/s the snow. 

The sleet, the wintry gale ! 



86 



A WAYSIDE WAIF 

THICK-TANGLED grew the wayside 
weeds, 
Sprung from a thousand sturdy seeds 

That recked not how the weather turned ; 
From every sort good cheer they earned 
And sustenance for rudest needs. 

But, lo ! among them, coy and white, 
A rose that strove to drink the light 
FaUing in many a broken ray. 
Yet feared the weeds would cry it nay. 
Smote, like a shame, upon my sight. 

I felt the difference of worth ; 

I half reproached the dumb, blind earth, 
As if it might more favor show 
To the shy plant that sought to grow 

'Mongst mates of far less gentle birth. 

Poor flower ! doomed to wilt and fade. 

Hast thou, more delicately made 

Than these that crushed thy purer bloom — 
These lives that must be thy life's tomb — 

Thus for thy dream of beauty paid ? 



VARIATIONS 

A MIST upon the valley sleeps. 
Not one sun arrow strikes it through ; 
No zephyr in yon pine grove leaps. 

No bird flies 'mid the sullen blue ; 
Whilst I with well-worn fancies toy. 
And wish and wish for some new joy. 

87 



See ! From the vale the mist is lifted, 
The sun sends down fair shafts of light ; 

With west-wind song the pines are gifted, 
And many a bird-wing flits in sight ; 

Whilst I, in fresher frame of mind. 

Draw new joy from the same old kind ! 

THE PASSING BUTTERFLY 

GLASSED in a limpid pool, where insects 
croon 
And fragrant mint the curving brink en- 
shrouds, 
I watch the panorama of the clouds. 
Whilst broods the azure-splendent August noon. 

And, sudden, 'thwart the clouds' reflected 
rings. 
My downcast eyes behold a butterfly, 
With broad, gold-spotted, blue-and-ebon 
wings — 
A wanderer 'twixt the true and pictured sky. 

An airy palpability astray 

Among the coarser beauties of the scene. 
Too frail art thou to sport 'mid glare of day ; 

Bear elsewhere, butterfly ! thine elfin sheen. 

Glide on, glide on to where, now loveless, 
sleeps 
Love's darling, and poise o'er the still, cold 

breast : 
But, oh ! deem not thou e'er canst break 
that rest. 
Deeper than earth's unfathomed, darkest deeps. 

88 



ILofC. 



THE JUNE ROBIN 

ON yonder bough 'mid laughing light 
That erstwhile flashed about the flight 
Of his swift wings, 

In happiness without alloy, 
The very ecstasy of joy, 
A robin sings ! 

Because entangled in a mood 

That makes the spirit darkly brood 

On thoughts unkind, 

Before the songster hither flew 
No touch of youthfulness I knew 

In heart or mind. 

But now my heart is as the bird's. 

And sunshine flickers through my words 

And my lips laugh : 

As if the winged Boy divine 

Had brought Jove's amber-lucent wine 

For me to quaff ! 

And 'mongst this new June's bloomy maze 

I tread a far-off June's green ways 

That were so sweet ; 

And, through the robin's tuneful art. 
In lost delights once more take part 

And lost loves greet ! 



89 



THE FROST-WITCH 
I 

HER keen blue eyes exult to see 
Fierce Northwind come, and in her glee 
She greets the monster merrily. 



And he, to win her smiles, doth nip 
The grass on lawns, and cause to drip 
Death-poison on the woodland's lip. 

Ill 

She runs beside him, wild with hate, 
Or lurks behind him, mute as Fate, 
To blight all that escapes her mate. 

'iv 
Nook-sheltered fern, wall-shielded flowers. 
Fast-clinging vines on sun -kissed towers, 
And asters of the autumn bowers. 



All, all she wounds, until they grow. 
Beneath her touch, chill as the snow, 
Black, brown, and red with anguished woe. 

VI 

Like a Bacchante, 'mongst the boughs 
She leaps, and bids her rugged spouse 
More truculently to carouse. 

VII 

So doth she act till every hill 

Stands bare, and every stream grows still. 

And naught is left to bruise or kill. 

90 



VIII 

Then over her there steals a change : 
Leaving Northwind alone to range, 
Her mind from mirth she doth estrange. 

IX 

As if remorse her breast did gnaw, 

Feverishly she waits each thaw, 

And with wild hands her hair doth claw ; 

X 

And clothing her in gown of white. 
She lieth down, and, day and night. 
Bemoans her wicked, past delight ; 

XI 

Till Heaven grows at last more kind. 

And, with spring-blossoms round her twined. 

She sinks to sleep and peace doth find. 

A WINTER NIGHT STORM. 

WOUNDING the boughs that have no 
leaves. 
The northeast blast assaults these eaves, 
Whereat in dread I hold my breath, 
As though I heard the voice of Death. 

And 'neath the cloud-strewn tortured sky. 
Where yet a moon's ghost wanders by, 
The pines form, on yon hillside lone, 
As 'twere, an arc of some strange zone. 

The segment of some circle vast 
From mysteries of gloom up -cast. 
Here only visible to sight 
'Midst the tempest's evoking might. 

91 



Hush ! Is my pale lamp listening 
To secrets that these wind fiends bring ? 
A speech I know not, yet can fear, 
As close it whispers to mine ear ! 

THE KNIGHTS OF THE YELLOW 
SHIELD 

THE Socialists are out to-day, 
But not on mischief bent. 
Look at them, garbed in brownish -gray, 
In conclave so intent. 

Upon their breasts they badges wear 

Of modest yellow hue, 
Whose one device they all do share 

Beneath God's wintry blue. 

For all are in such duty bound 

That not one voice objects : 
Each fellow has his vantage-ground, 

Which each, for each, respects. 

They need no leader, though they mass 

Like violets in spring ; 
Or clover-blossoms 'midst the grass. 

Whence bees sweet treasure bring. 

They chatter, only to agree 

Upon some settled plan. 
Whose wisdom all so clearly see 

That none uplifts his ban. 

Behold the pretty, perching throng 

On yonder stalks of weeds ! 
And listen to their cheery song 

While hunting frost-clad seeds ! 

92 



Oh, they are but a company 
Of common yellow birds — 

Yet what a tale of comradery 
They tell, with no big words ! 



A THANKSGIVING PICTURE 

[A Sequence in Yellow'] 

THE tawny fields reach upward to yon 
woods, 
Brown-purple in this latter autumn haze. 
Which, in the west, turns to an amber blaze 
Of cloud-flame where the setting daystar broods. 

The tawny fields, whose gaudy pumpkins 
spread 
Among the straw-hued stubble of the corn 
A topaz splendor, though the land lies shorn 

Of clover pasture and of flower-bed. 

The tawny fields — But see ; a mansion looms, 
Yellow, betwixt those red-brown leafless 

boughs ; 
There, this same eve, shall lovers seal true 
vows 
'Neath old-gold tapestries of stately rooms. 

There gather friends, a genial laughing host ; 
For ' tis Thanksgiving, and they homage pay 
To bride and groom, and gratefully would 
lay 
A wreath where mem'ries wake of many a 
toast ! 

93 



And their good hearts with generous joyshall sing 
To view the gold-haired maid in old white 



lace ; 



Whilst her young lord, with all a knight's 
proud grace, 
On her fair finger slips the fair gold ring. 



THE BIRD WINGS 

ALOFT ! aloft ! in morn's clear air, 
Above the meadow-belt of larch, 
Above the osage hedgerow's arch. 
Beyond the cornfields rustling fair. 
Oh, happy bird, on vibrant wing, 
Sing of thy nest, thy home nest, sing ! 

Bend, bend, ye maples, whisperingly ; 
Tall grasses, blink your dewy eyes. 
And give the bees a glad surprise ; 

And wave, ye oak-boughs, glisteringly ; 
While, as I gaze, the bird, still higher 
Fluttering, wends the heavens nigher. 

Over her plumes the rath-light breaks — 

A tiny boat ! Her feather oars. 

In swift libration, as she soars. 
Scatter and part the sparkling flakes 

Of dawn -kissed ether far and wide ; 

While on she flies in warbling pride. 

Then soft a voice doth seem to say : 
' ' The nether wing a thought awakes 
Of night and wrong ; but that which shakes 

Ever above, in joyous sway. 

Means day and ecstasy of light — 
The triumph of the brave and right ! ' ' 

94 



I look, and lo ! dark shadows play 
Over the under wing called night / 
But on the one of higher flight 

Brightness impends of perfect day. 

A-wish I breathe : ' ' Oh, may mine eyes 
See last the wing that skyward flies ! ' ' 

Then, still the songster cleaves the light, 
Mounting to heights of purer dye. 
Till, fading, oh, my joy ! on high 

Her upper wing shows last in sight ! 

And now the winds would have sur- 
cease ! 
While on my heart falls sweetest peace. 



A JUNE DREAM 

WARM is the wind, yet wild, 
Wild as a lawless child, 
Who feels the summer's joy 
Leaping along his veins — 

Yes, 'tis like some fair boy. 
Whose pulse for action strains. 
Who every curb disdains. 

Ah, look, what glorious light 
Suffuses the blue skies ! 
What gold-capped clouds arise 

In domes before my sight — 

A pageantry that shows 

Like Wizard Prospero's 
Vision of mystic guise. 

95 



Caressed by Fancy's lips, 
Mine eyes descry the ships 

That sailed of old the sea 
Nigh Baise's lordly shore, 

Or passed Inarime, 
With rose -wreathed prow and oar. 
To some wave-greeting door. 

Some palace portal fair 
Of that enchanted land ; 
Perchance on Paestum's strand, 

Whose fragrance -laden air 
Worked like the lotus spell 
That bade Ulysses dwell 

Free from all former care. 

O names of Grecian choice. 
Like music's own sweet voice ! 

Pgestum, Inarime, 
And, o'er the narrow main, 

y^tnean Sicily, 
The Syracusan plain, 
And Agrigentum's fane ! 

This warm yet wild June breeze 
My heart leads thus astray 
To regions far away — 

The land of thyme and bees, 
Of pastures nigh vast hills, 
Of nymph-delighting rills. 

And dryad-haunted trees. 



96 



APR 2 3 1902 



APR 23 



1902 



